4 ms·

I think what the article meant by 'truly' bilingual was someone not only fluent in speech but with equivalent vocabulary, grammar etc in two languages. I'd gue

I think what the article meant by 'truly' bilingual was someone not only fluent in speech but with equivalent vocabulary, grammar etc in two languages. I'd guess that the kids you knew growing up were speaking english in school and another language at home, so they likely don't develop the vocabulary and grammar in their 'home' language that they might have if they were studying it every day in school. From the article regarding kids from bilingual homes who speak english in school: "... they didn’t go to school in Spanish, they don’t read books in Spanish, and when you actually measure the size of their vocabularies, or the grammar they understand, or the coherence of the narrative they produce, they are not as proficient as they are in English".

Manishearth 9y ago
Well, yeah, but the rest of the article doesn't seem to use that definition of "true" bilingual? Because it just talks about immersion with native speakers. Either the article didn't deliver as advertised -- had a hook about "true" bilingualism (whatever that is), and then went on to explain how to raise a "regular" bilingual child. Or the article really just meant "regular" bilingualism and wrong in stating that it is rare. (Or perhaps I just have a very skewed sample set and even "regular" bilingualism is rare) Idk. Overall this article didn't sit well with me, for more reason than one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14830685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14830685).